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Sunday, October 18, 2009

What constitutes "Artificial"?!

So I was just scanning through a Women's Health mag at the gym I work at. An advertisement for a new calorie-burning soda caught my attention. Of course, I go to the website and look at their science and ingredients. Regardless of whether or not I think this beverage is a good idea or if it works, looking at the drinks marketing made me wonder what constitutes "articial" and "flavor"?

On the website for the drink Celsius, you can see the image of their lovely can and then turn it around to get the whole "picking it up in the store" effect. Great. So it says (along with check marks so that we can be sure they're referring to their own product) "No Sugar. No Carbs. No Aspartame. No High Fructose Corn Syrup. No Artificial Colors or Flavors." But they DO use sucralose, the artificial sweetener from hell.

I am SO mad when marketers use the No-this, No-that technique to show how wonderful their product is.

But if I wouldn't want Aspartame in my drink, why for **** sake would I want to drink Sucralose?!! DUH!!

If I refuse to drink Artificial colors or flavors, why would drinking Sparkling Orange flavored chlorine molecules be alright? Um, it ISN'T!

If you have a natural product it's natural and there' s NO bs in it. If you have a fake-o product, don't dress it up to be natural. One dreadfully poisonous ingredient is enough to ruin all your natural ingredients. And yes, in case you missed my previous rants, Sucralose is an awful poisonous sugar alternative that I think will have major lawsuits in the future. While I dont expect the Celsius makers to change their ways (because they don't care how good your health-report card is as long as you keep purchasing their product) I would like you to steer clear of products that are no good for you.

If you want to burn 100 calories go walk a mile. The 100 calories the can claims it can remove will NOT help your cardiovascular system get stronger. It will not help you build muscle and therefore shape...yeah, all those sexy dips, curves and lines you like are created by muscle.

Personal training is the only magic weight-loss ingredient I can think of that's genuine. Your trainer helps you to lose weight (or gain if that is your goal), build confidence, balance, strength, agility, coordination and helps you continuously long after you've met your initial goal. Why? First because its rewarding, second because its fun as hell to help folks learn about themselves and their bodies.

5 comments:

Anonymous
said...

1) Sucralose was discovered in 1976. More than 100 scientific studies conducted over a 20-year period have conclusively demonstrated that sucralose is safe for consumption.

2)A Celsius scientific study was performed by the University of Oklahoma recently. The study showed that when compared to exercise alone, drinking a single 12 oz. can of Celsius per day for 10 weeks prior to a workout resulted in the following benefits:

Obviously you're not well versed or up on the scientific studies done on the chemical over the past 20+ years by individual experts. Educate yourself before complaining about something you seemingly know VERY LITTLE about. GEEZ!

I didn't say that Celsius claims to be natural. I said that the layout and the wording on the can implies that it is a natural product. Not maliciously, just enough i'm sure to get attention.

My intention is NOT to bring Celsius down. I have no beef with Celsius at all. I DO however want to get people thinking about what they eat and drink. Many people have no idea what it is that they're putting into their body whether it's a carrot or a chemical. We read labels and not usually in a critical way, so we are subject to having our opinions of a product molded by certain colors, packaging, packaging texture, buzz words, and words that aren't there.

The drink advertisement was simply what got me thinking about this. I could have just as logically gone after newspaper articles.

Be critical with what you read or hear, whether its online articles, newspaper articles, published studies or food packages. Do some thinking for yourself! Don't just believe them if the box says, "Tastes Great!"